Artist's Note: Craig Minowa

Artist's Note: Craig Minowa

Music has been an integral part of human expression for at least 55,000 years, first originating with our distant ancestors in Africa. For the vast majority of that time—indeed up until just the past few centuries—the central role of music has been to serve as a sort of ceremonial bridge between humans and the spirit world.

For countless generations, music was used almost exclusively as a tool to connect us to our gods and to expel the demons we saw inside of ourselves. The drums beating around ancient tribal fires had the same kind of intention as hymns sung in churches that are meant to help connect a congregation to God. For that reason, I see music as an incredibly sacred gift to humanity and an essential tool to help us evolve our collective spiritual state of being.

My deepest appreciation for music has been in its ability to help me feel connected to the deepest things inside of me and the biggest things outside of me.

For as far back as I can remember, my deepest appreciation for music has been in its ability to help me feel connected to the deepest things inside of me and the biggest things outside of me. Long before there was ever a dream of music becoming any kind of occupation for me, I had the inherent need to create it partially as a means of finding my way through my own quagmire of emotions, but more so as a tool to connect me to a higher state of being that I was unable to find in the practices of my religious upbringing. Having spent my life as a spiritual seeker, I've explored many world religions and have never found a more reliable tool of transcendence than music. It has always been my personal prayer and meditation.

Cloud Cult is a project that was originally born out of songs that were made for personal medicine and were never intended to be publicly released. The songs then and now all tend to have those same main ethereal ingredients and intention in common. The band name was based on a sect of 300-year-old indigenous prophecies that speak of a dangerous time when human technology evolves faster than its spirituality. I believe that time is now, and music is one tool we can use with intention to overcome that disparity.

Despite lyrics that explore big-picture philosophical questions and attempt to extract magic out of the mundane, we do not claim to have any answers, nor do we as a band preach any kind of religion. Our hearts are partially broken, just like yours, and our pockets are stuffed with any kind of hope we can get our hands on, just like yours. So every Cloud Cult album and every performance is an attempt to use music as a sacred tool for the same purposes our ancestors did.